Phil Anschutz's conservative agenda

One night last week at The Dubliner, an Irish bar near the Capitol, an unassuming Denver billionaire who has quietly made himself a player in Washington’s relatively small media world, had dinner with his editors.

It was a rare D.C. visit by Philip Anschutz, ranked by Forbes as the 37th richest man in America. But Anschutz’s ownership of The Washington Examiner, a daily tabloid, and The Weekly Standard, probably the nation’s most influential conservative magazine, has given him a megaphone for his right-wing views on taxes, national security and President Barack Obama that the 130 or so companies he owns have not provided him.

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Characteristically, for someone who’s flown under the radar for much of his career, no one would talk about the dinner’s agenda. Examiner Executive Editor Stephen G. Smith said that Anschutz’s visit to the office that day was “routine” and that the “relaxing” dinner for the two publications’ managers was over by 8 p.m. “We weren’t painting the town red,” he added.

Famously reclusive — he has given only two interviews in the past 30 years — the 69-year-old Anschutz has never discussed how he ended up owning two money-losing publications or what he wants to do with them, but his intentions seem clear.

Founded in 1995, the Standard provided its first owner, Rupert Murdoch, with a Washington platform that bashed the White House during the Clinton years and enjoyed a privileged position during the presidency of George W. Bush, when it became one of the most aggressive champions of the war in Iraq. Anschutz acquired it last spring, reportedly for the bargain price of $1 million.

He started the Examiner in early 2005 as local competition to The Washington Post, but with a clear ideological stamp. When it came to the editorial page, Anschutz’s instructions were explicit — he “wanted nothing but conservative columns and conservative op-ed writers,” said one former employee.

And recently the paper’s politics have become more pronounced while adding a stable of writers plucked from conservative outlets and think tanks, including chief political correspondent Byron York (National Review), senior political analyst Michael Barone (American Enterprise Institute, Fox News) and investigative reporter David Freddoso (National Review, author of “The Case Against Barack Obama”).

Asked why his friend of 20 years is investing in publications that have never made money (the Standard) or have little hope of making any (the Examiner), Dean Singleton, chief executive of MediaNews, replied: “I really don’t know.”

Those who work with Anschutz say he has the same objective in everything he does — a profit. “There’s an expectation that all our assets will be good enterprises and profitable,” said Ryan McKibben, chief executive of Clarity Media Group, part of Anschutz’s empire that oversees his media companies. “There’s no charity involved. “

Not everyone is convinced.

“You have to look at what he’s doing as partly a reflection of some of his political convictions,” said newspaper analyst John Morton. “It was no accident it was The Weekly Standard he bought and not The Nation.”

As for the Examiner, Morton said, “Clearly, I don’t think that any rational person — and you’d have to include him among the rational — would view, right now, the newspaper business [as] an investment that would promise a good return.”

The Examiner’s distribution figures in the Washington metro area are 100,000 on Monday through Wednesday and 135,000 on Friday. On Thursday and Sunday — the two days the newspaper is delivered to upper-income neighborhoods — the circulation is 300,000 and 250,000 respectively. Anschutz’s company is privately held, and longtime aide Jim Monaghan declined to comment on whether the newspapers are profitable and if there is a business plan in place for that to happen.